Tax cuts, parks investments included in Superior Mayor’s 2024 budget proposal

SUPERIOR, WI. (Northern News Now) -- Folks in Superior could be seeing a big decrease in property taxes next year.

“The city is improving, and that is benefitting everybody,” said Superior Mayor Jim Paine.

Mayor Paine went in front of the city council Tuesday, unveiling his 2024 general budget proposal, which he says would create the largest city tax reduction for property owners since 2008.

“It’ll be a while before we have the exact numbers on how that affects individuals,” said Mayor Paine. “But people’s taxes will go down, at least to the city. On the other hand, we are raising the services we are providing.”

The budget proposal would use funding to expand different city departments, like the park crew.

“We are going to make one of our largest increases in park spending that we have ever made,” said Mayor Paine. “So, every single citizen can walk to an exciting outdoor experience in their own neighborhood.”

Mayor Paine’s proposal would also dedicate funding to public safety departments. For example, the proposal would expand the police department team, adding a community response specialist.

“We are going to add another response specialist to increase our response and modernize out police force,” said Mayor Paine.

The budget allocates funding to many improvement projects, but the mayor says that the taxpayers are not impacted due to new state funding.

Funding that would give the city $35 million in available revenue so the mayor can move forward in capital investments.

“The legislature proposed an increase in our shared revenue bill. That’s citizen taxes too,” said Mayor Paine. “That’s people’s individual income taxes that are coming back to their hometown now. "

“Citizens should be very excited about the years ahead,” said Mayor Paine.

Mayor Paine will lay out more specific details of the budget at the next Council meeting. From there, the council can choose to make adjustments, or adopt the plan as proposed.

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